Battle heats up to save old Prentice Hospital in Chicago

An empty lot owned by Northwestern sits in front of the old Prentice women's hospital building, with its oval windows. It was designed by Bertrand Goldberg. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune)

Both sides have escalated their public relations warfare in the bitter battle over the fate of the old Prentice Women's Hospital while still awaiting a long-postponed discussion on the matter by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

At its September meeting, Commission Chairman Rafael Leon announced the commission would address the hotly debated issue "before the end of the fall season," leading some to think it would be on the agenda for the October session. But old Prentice will not be addressed Thursday by the commission, which tabled the question in June 2011 and hasn't taken it up since, a spokesman said.

To advance their cause, a coalition of preservation groups pushing to save old Prentice led a walk-through late last week of the Streeterville neighborhood surrounding the former hospital, an icon of modern architecture from 1975 designed by Chicagoan Bertrand Goldberg.

The tour was designed to rebut Northwestern University's argument for knocking down old Prentice. The university wants to expand its medical-research facilities and says it lacks an alternative to the hospital's site.

"The only thing lacking is the will," said Bonnie McDonald, president of Landmarks Illinois, as she stood next to a large vacant lot near old Prentice where a veterans hospital once stood. The preservationists said the land is one of several pieces of empty property available to Northwestern that make tearing down old Prentice unnecessary.

The university counters that the veterans hospital site is reserved for future expansion of its inpatient facilities. Preservationists say the expansion isn't scheduled until 2021, but the university says that doesn't matter and it shouldn't be forced to use the land now just to placate preservationists.

"Just because a piece of land is vacant doesn't mean we should put a building there now, then take it down eight years later for another one," said Northwestern spokesman Alan Cubbage. "That makes no sense."

A study done by the Save Prentice Coalition says old Prentice Hospital occupies only 4 percent of Northwestern's real estate holdings in Streeterville. The university counters that its other properties lack an essential virtue of the land underlying the old women's hospital.

"The Prentice site truly is the linchpin for our biomedical facilities," Cubbage said. "It's adjacent to an existing research building which we want to link floor-by-floor with a new one (on the old Prentice site) we're going to build."

Northwestern says a new building would include an architectural virtue preservationists overlook — a floor plan that would foster the kind of interaction between researchers that leads to scientific breakthroughs.

The old Prentice building at 333 E. Superior St. was replaced in 2007 by the new Prentice Women's Hospital at 250 E. Superior St.

Northwestern says it is pro-architecture, pointing to a series of graceful gothic buildings on its Streeterville campus. "Some are about a century old," Cubbage said. "We've lovingly kept them up."

He added that demolishing old Prentice would improve the neighborhood's skyline. The university recently announced it will conduct an international competition for the design of a replacement building, if it gets approval to knock down the old Prentice. With a nod to native pride in Chicago as the birthplace of modern architecture, the university promises that a local architect will be part of the design team, no matter who wins the competition.

Some world-class architects might be likely to take a pass on Northwestern's competition — among them Renzo Piano, who designed the modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Frank Gehry, who designed the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. They are among eight winners of the Pritzker Prize, the architectural world's most prestigious award, who have joined some 80 other architects in a petition urging the landmarks commission to save old Prentice Hospital.

Mayor Rahm Emmanuel hasn't tipped his hand on which way he is leaning. At a recent news conference, he ticked off a list of those he has talked to about the issue, including "residents, residents' organizations in the Streeterville area ... people from the Greater Michigan Avenue business district ... Northwestern and Northwestern hospital."

"We noticed that we weren't on the list," said McDonald, referring to members of the Save Prentice Coalition.

Explaining why the landmarks commission tabled the issue 16 months ago, Chairman Leon noted that the mayor had been in office less than two weeks, indicating Emanuel will play an important role in any decision.